I'm Down with Rick Warren

I must admit, I've never been a big fan of Rick Warren--the Hawaiian shirt wearing, cheesy joke telling, mega church pastor. I've never even had a desire to read The Purpose Driven Life. I guess I've just never been drawn to his expression of Christianity.

But I've grown to appreciate Pastor Warren for the ways he is helping the Evangelical community to bridge the gap between evangelism and social justice.

The other day I read an article in Relevant Magazine that featured Warren's work in Africa. In the article, Warren identifies what he believes to be the five biggest problems in the world:

1. Spiritual Emptiness
2. Corrupt Leadership
3. Extreme Poverty
4. Disease
5. Illiteracy and Lack of Education

I was really impressed with what Warren had to say about these issues. Commenting on extreme poverty he said, "The answer is not charity. When you give money away--when you give people things they could do for themselves--you don't teach them to do it for themselves. You rob their dignity, and you create victims. You create dependency and a 'what have you done for me lately' attitude. It actually removes initiative."

So what is Warren's response to the five "global giants," as he puts them? He says that Jesus gave us a model to defeat the world's biggest problems. According to warren, "[Jesus] promoted reconciliation, equipped servant leaders, assisted the poor, cared for the sick and educated the next generation." Those five tenants are put into an acronym to create the P.E.A.C.E Plan strategy.

For Warren, it all begins with the Church. With more than 2.3 billion Christian in the world, it's the largest "network" with the potential to combat the world's greatest problems. Moreover, the P.E.A.C.E Plan is an attempt at creating lasting, sustainable, solutions that help people stand on their own two feet and escape systems of injustice.

Warren admits the problems facing our world are huge. In response to the "global giants," he says, "It gives God honor when we try to do something that's impossible."

The entire article can be found online HERE

Liturgical Stumbling

It would be much easier if we English speakers just had a single way of reciting the Apostle's Creed. But instead, some of us like to say "living and the dead," while others prefer the more traditional "quick and the dead." And then of course there is the dispute about whether or not we should say "catholic" or "Christian."

At my church, we recently updated how we say the Apostle's Creed. "living" sounded better than "quick" and we don't know the difference between "catholic" (lower case "c") and "Catholic" (upper case "C"), so "Christian" sounded better to us, too.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to you, but since making the change a few months ago, we still can't seem to get it right. It's right there, printed in the bulletin, but still we mess it up. I was reading out of the the Covenant Book of Worship (incorrectly), and our senior pastor was reciting from memory (incorrectly). The only people in the sanctuary reciting the creed properly were the folks in the pews. This is problematic, though, because they are supposed to be following our lead.

For me, sharing in the Lord's Table is such a high point in the life of our worshiping community, so I get really frustrated when we botch the preparation so badly. And although we're without little excuse for stumbling our way through the Apostle's Creed, I do find comfort in the Words of Invitation that beckon us to share in this sacred meal: "Come not because you are strong, but because you are weak; not because you have any claim on the grace of God, but because in your frailty and sin you stand in constant need of his mercy and help."

A Prayer For Ash Wednesday

Heavenly Father, before you all hearts are known. Try as we might, there is no hiding from you the sin in our lives. You are not deceived by our clever cover-ups, nor our elaborate justifications. We must stop pretending that we have it all together. Before you, O God, we must lay our hearts bare. As we come face-to-face with our fragile humanity and our need for forgiveness, we ask that your Spirit would descend upon us and cleanse us of our wrongdoing. Give us clean hearts and renew in us a right spirit. And as we put aside our sinfulness, give us strength to move boldly forward in pursuit of your righteousness. By your grace, give us eyes to see what kind of people we are becoming. This we pray in the name of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Next Six Months

In August of 2007 I accepted an invitation to serve as an intern youth pastor for two years at Rye Congregational Church in Rye, New Hampshire. The last year and a half has been the most adventurous and exciting time of my life, but it has also been the most difficult leap of faith that I have ever taken. My time in New Hampshire has been extremely rewarding, but also challenging. Uprooting one's self and relocating thousands of miles from friends and family does not come without cost. However, from this vantage point, a year and a half later, I have no regret for moving to Rye.

But this post is not really so much about the last year and a half of my life as it is about the next six months.

On Sunday I made my official announcement to the congregation that my last day on pastoral staff will be June 7th. I had planned to stay until August, but the church is hiring someone new to fill my position and wants this new person to go to work no later than August 1st. This leaves me about three weeks short of employment until the time of my move to Chicago and the start classes at North Park Theological Seminary.

Shortly following my last day at the church, I will be coming out to Seattle for my sister's graduation and Joe's wedding. After that, I'll begin my job on the summer maintenance crew at Pilgrim Pines Conference Center (a two hour car ride from Rye). My primary responsibilities will consist of mowing, weed whacking, bush trimming, wood splitting, garbage disposal, and painting. Believe it or not, I'm really excited for my work at the Pines. But more importantly, I have a place to live and employment until the time of my move to Chicago. This also means that I'm working with my girlfriend Carol, who has worked at the Pines since last August. Although she'll probably out rank me on staff and make me do extra weed whacking or something, I don't care because I'll get to see her every day, rather than once a week.

So there it is... the next six months of my life in a nut shell.

Love

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it. -Oswald Chambers

Center and Circumference

I started reading a book that was recommend to me by the associate pastor at my church. It's a book written by Richard Rohr called Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. I find the title to be rather unpretentious, but I think this book is gonna be a real sleeper. I'm not trying to do a book review, but I do want to share a small snippet from the first chapter:

People who have learned to live from their center in God know which boundaries are worth maintaining and which can be surrendered... Probably the most obvious indication of noncentered ("ec-centric") people is that they are, franky, very difficult to live with. Every ego-boundary must be defended, negotiated, or worshiped: my reputation, my needs, my nation, my security, my religion, even my ball team. These are really all I have to worry about because they are my only feeble identity. You can tell if you have placed a lot of eggs in these flimsy baskets if you are hurt or offended a lot. You can hardly hurt saints because they are living at the center and do not need to protect the circumference of feelings and needs. Ec-centric persons are always a hurt waiting to happen. In fact, they will create tragedies to make themselves feel alive.

Reading this statement felt kind of like ice cubes running down my back. Where do find my true identity? Do I find my identity at the center where I am "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3), or do I find my identity along the circumference of my person?

Saint Valentine

I guess I had always figured Valentines Day was the creation of Hallmark, or one of the many industries that greatly benefit from this national day of love. Perhaps I'm the only one naive enough not to know anything about the true origins of Valentines Day, but reading up on the history of V-Day has been pretty interesting. If you don't know much about Valentines Day, here's something I'm pulling from History.com:

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

So there you have it. We have the martyrdom of Saint Valentine to thank for all the love that's in the air today.